IPB Introduces Superior Rice Seeds
27 September 2015 19:12 WIB
TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - A team of researchers from the Bogor Institute of Agriculture introduced superior quality seeds of rice to boost productivity by three folds. The potential productivity reached 13.4 tons of dried unhulled paddy per hectare.
“It’s more than the average national rice production at 5.5 tons per hectare,” team chief Hajrial Aswidinnoor said onSunday, September 27, 2015.
In a bid to boost rice production, the government said that it would expand drum farms in West Java, East Java, Central Java, South Sulawesi and South Kalimantan, from 500 hectares to 100,000 hectares by 2015, Hajrial added.
The increasing productivity in agriculture has convinced President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo that Indonesia would not need to import rice until late 2015. Jokowi said that the national paddy stock stood at 1.7 million tons that would increase by 300,000 tons by the end of this year.
Jokowi added that the government would focus on maintaining rice availability, distribution and affordable price. Jokowi also asked the State Logistics Agency (Bulog) to support the government endeavors. Jokowi revealed that the government had prepared a program to expand paddy fields across Indonesia.
HISYAM LUTHFIANA